The ‘wealthy’ Goa Assembly of less 'educated' and increasing ‘criminals’

GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 17 March 2017 20:51 IST

This Goa Assembly has created a record of till date. More MLAs are filthy rich but less educated and equally sizeable number is having criminal cases against them.

With the Assembly finally being elected and the government being formed, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has now come out with its final tally.

Goa Coordiantor Bhaskar Assoldekar of ADR said being crorepati is not a big issue today since a three-bedroom flat in a city like Panaji today costs minimum Rs one crore. But this profile of assets is much larger than that, with not a single MLA is holding assets below Rs 1 crore.

The average assets of all the 40 MLAs are 10.96 crore. And there are more MLAs having assets above Rs 5 crore.

This is the education profile of the MLAs and the ministers. The cabinet has at least three ministers, two of whom are SSC and one having passed Std XII, headed by IITian chief minister Manohar Parrikar.

The ADR has divided people having normal criminal cases and of serious nature. This is the position of MLAs having criminal cases pending against them:

The criteria followed for serious criminal cases are as follows:

1. Offence for which maximum punishment is of 5 years or more.

2. If an offence is non-bailable.

3. If it is an electoral offence (for eg. IPC 171E or bribery).

4. Offence related to loss to exchequer.

5. Offences that are assault, murder, kidnap, rape related.

6. Offences that are mentioned in Representation of the People Act (Section 8).

7. Offences under Prevention of Corruption.

And the list of such persons include six MLAs with two ministers and two former chief ministers. Both Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao are indicted in the multi-crore Louis Berger bribery case: